The Rhetoric Of Aristotle

'Moral character, so to say, constitutes the most effective means of proof.' In ancient Greece, rhetoric was at the centre of public life. Many writers attempted to provide manuals to help improve debating skills, but it was not until Aristotle produced The Art of Rhetoric in the 4th century bc that the subject had a true masterpiece. As he considered the role of emotion, reason, and morality in speech, Aristotle created essential guidelines for argument and prose style that would influence writers for more than two millennia. Brilliantly explained and carefully reasoned, The Art of Rhetoric remains as relevant today as it was in the assemblies of ancient Athens.

A “singularly accurate, readable, and elegant translation [of] this much-neglected foundational text of political philosophy” (Peter Ahrensdorf, Davidson College). For more than two thousand years, Aristotle’s“Art of Rhetoric” has shaped thought on the theory and practice of persuasive speech. In three sections, Aristotle defines three kinds of rhetoric (deliberative, judicial, and epideictic); discusses three rhetorical modes of persuasion; and describes the diction, style, and necessary parts of a successful speech. Throughout, Aristotle defends rhetoric as an art and a crucial tool for deliberative politics while also recognizing its capacity to be misused by unscrupulous politicians to mislead or illegitimately persuade others. Here Robert C. Bartlett offers an authoritative yet accessible new translation of Aristotle’s “Art of Rhetoric,” one that takes into account important alternatives in the manuscript and is fully annotated to explain historical, literary, and other allusions. Bartlett’s translation is also accompanied by an outline of the argument of each book; copious indexes, including subjects, proper names, and literary citations; a glossary of key terms; and a substantial interpretive essay.

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For Aristotle, arousing the passions of others can amount to giving them proper grounds for conviction. On that basis a skill in doing so can be something valuable, an appropriate constituent of the kind of expertise in rhetoric that deserves to be cultivated and given expression in a well-organised state. Such are Jamie Dow's principal claims in Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle's Rhetoric. He attributes to Aristotle a normative view of rhetoric and its role in the state, and ascribes to him a particular view of the kinds of cognitions involved in the passions. In the first sustained treatment of these issues, and the first major monograph on Aristotle's Rhetoric in twenty years, Dow argues that Aristotle held distinctive and philosophically interesting views of both rhetoric and the nature of the passions. In Aristotle's view, he argues, rhetoric is exercised solely in the provision of proper grounds for conviction (pisteis). This is rhetoric's valuable contribution to the proper functioning of the state. Dow explores, through careful examination of the text of the Rhetoric, what normative standards must be met for something to qualify in Aristotle's view as 'proper grounds for conviction', and how he supposed these standards could be met by each of his trio of 'technical proofs' (entechnoi pisteis)—those using reason, character and emotion. In the case of the passions, Dow suggests, meeting these standards is a matter of arousing passions that constitute the reasonable acceptance of premises in arguments supporting the speaker's conclusion. Dow then seeks to show that Aristotle's view of the passions is compatible with this role in rhetorical expertise. This involves taking a stand on a number of controversial issues in Aristotle studies. In Passions and Persuasion, Dow rejects the view that Aristotle's Rhetoric expresses inconsistent views on emotion-arousal. Aristotle's treatment of the passions in the Rhetoric is, he argues, best understood as expressing a substantive theory of the passions as pleasures and pains. This is supported by a new representationalist reading of Aristotle's account of pleasure (and pain) in Rhetoric 1. Dow also defends a distinctive understanding of how Aristotle understood the contribution of phantasia ('appearance') to the cognitive component of the passions. On this interpretation, Aristotelian passions must involve the subject's affirming things to be the way that they are represented. Thus understood, the passions of an emotionally-engaged audience can constitute a part of their reasonable acceptance of a speaker's argument.

With the emergence of democracy in the city-state of Athens in the years around 460 BC, public speaking became an essential skill for politicians in the Assemblies and Councils - and even for ordinary citizens in the courts of law. In response, the technique of rhetoric rapidly developed, bringing virtuoso performances and a host of practical manuals for the layman. While many of these were little more than collections of debaters' tricks, the Art of Rhetoric held a far deeper purpose. Here Aristotle (384-322 BC) establishes the methods of informal reasoning, provides the first aesthetic evaluation of prose style and offers detailed observations on character and the emotions. Hugely influential upon later Western culture, the Art of Rhetoric is a fascinating consideration of the force of persuasion and sophistry, and a compelling guide to the principles behind oratorical skill.

"In this major contribution to philosophy and rhetoric, Eugene Garver shows how Aristotle integrates logic and virtue in the Rhetoric. Garver raises and answers a central question: can there be a civic art of rhetoric, an art that forms the character of citizens? By demonstrating the importance of the Rhetoric for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the Rhetoric as philosophy and to connect its themes with parallel problems in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. This groundbreaking study will help put rhetoric at the center of investigations of practice and practical reason."--Page 4 of cover.

Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric offers a fresh and comprehensive assessment of a classic work. Aristotle's influence on the practice and theory of rhetoric, as it affects political and legal argumentation, has been continuous and far-reaching. This anthology presents Aristotle's Rhetoric in its original context, providing examples of the kind of oratory whose success Aristotle explains and analyzes. The contributors—eminent philosophers, classicists, and critics—assess the role and the techniques of rhetorical persuasion in philosophic discourse and in the public sphere. They connect Aristotle's Rhetoric to his other work on ethics and politics, as well as to his ideas on logic, psychology, and philosophy of language. The collection as a whole invites us to reassess the place of rhetoric in intellectual and political life.